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5 Important Lessons The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Taught Us So Far

An advertising board in Glasgow displaying a message thanking the NHS as the UK continues in ... [+] lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images)

PA Images via Getty Images

Being a few weeks into the pandemic here in the U.S., some lessons are beginning to emerge. Some are crystal clear—like, health care workers are amazing and we owe them a huge debt (here’s a nice medley of #clapbecausewecare videos from NYC’s moving show of support last night); same for grocery store employees, deliverymen and -women, and the many other essential workers who keep us going. Other lessons are fuzzier, but starting to come into focus each day. And some of course won’t be clear until we’re further along, and epidemiologists, policy makers, and academics look back and try to understand what happened, hopefully with the benefit of hindsight.

But here are some funny lessons the pandemic has brought so far. Many we probably should have known all along, but the current situation has brought them out again in sharp relief. Hopefully we’ll be smart enough to remember them.

The world is wildly connected

We like to remember this one when it suits us—when talking about the connectivity that technology allows or the global nature of business. But we are obviously all connected physically, too, as evidenced by the speedy spread of the virus around the globe. To think of countries as fundamentally separate from one another is fundamentally flawed. Once we internalize this, we’ll probably be better off, both psychologically and in our ability to plan for future pandemics.

This might sound silly, but before the pandemic, most people might not have known that soap actually destroys certain kinds of viruses and bacteria. Now, having done a lot of reading on the subject, most people—and their kid—can probably explain in great detail why soap can obliterate microorganisms’ outer membranes, including the novel coronavirus. Who knew? Well, now we all do, and we’ll probably wash our hands a lot more frequently after this is “over.” Staying sudsy for at least 20 seconds is now part of our psyches.

It’s good to listen to data

We all want to think this will be magically over when the weather gets warm, but as the “country’s governor” (Cuomo) said in his press briefing yesterday, let’s listen to the numbers and the data, not emotion and personal beliefs. The data show patterns that help determine the course we take, and the data should always come first. It would have been good to have listened to it much earlier on, but here we are. The numbers coming in every day may ultimately show that our approach can be more nuanced in the future—and hopefully it will be—but we need to understand what’s going on first.

We are super-social creatures

Psychologists and researchers have been saying this for many, many years—we have a deep innate need to be around other people and share experiences, and indeed our lives. All the research shows that people who are more connected are happier and healthier in the long run. And while many people knew this, now we really know it. Social distancing—now intentionally changed to physicaldistancing by the WHO, for just this reason—has been excruciatingly difficult as a way of life. We’re doing it, but it’s not natural or pleasant. But having done it will perhaps help us in the future realize how critical the “village” is, and how lovely it is to interact—the shake hands, to hug, snuggle, and all the other acts of social closeness that make us human.

Life won’t be the same after—and that’s o.k.

People have been saying this since fairly early on into the saga, but it was hard to wrap one’s brain around—it was much more comforting to imagine that we’d spring right back to it after a month or two. But as “stay-at-home” orders extend, it’s easier to see that things have changed, some irreversibly, and for better and for worse.

We’ve been immersed, for example, in unbidden—but extremely valuable—real-world experiments in the powers of technological connectedness: telemedicine and working from home. These things will probably “stick,” to some degree, and make life better in lots of ways. We’ve also realized the extraordinary importance of preparation; we knew a pandemic would come around at some point, but we were still somehow largely unprepared.

And while the social (physical) distancing experiment has been illuminating in the other direction—we want to get away from that part—we might be smarter in the future about how we interact. But hopefully we’ll also feel a new sense of appreciation if and when we do get to act normal again. And hopefully that, and the other lessons we pull from this over time, will stick around for a long time.

I fell into writing about health shortly after grad school, where I realized I didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life! My main areas of interest are the…

I fell into writing about health shortly after grad school, where I realized I didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life! My main areas of interest are the brain and behavior, as well as what influences the decisions we make about our health, and how we can change it over time. As an undergraduate, I studied English Literature and Biopsychology at Vassar College, and got my PhD in Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at CUNY's Graduate Center in New York City, where I grew up and live now. My work appears in other publications, including the magazine of the University of Chicago's Business School, YogaGlo.com, TheAtlantic.com, and the American Psychological Association. Please email me at alicegwalton [at] gmail [dot] com or visit my website www.alicegwalton.com